Life As A Trucker Wife, Not Coping At All.

Life As A Trucker Wife, Not Coping At All. Couples Who Heal Together Stay Together.

As wives who feel alone and neglected in our marriages, especially trucker wives experiencing long-distance marriages, we wonder if our husbands are really into us or ready to give this family unit 100%.

Ideally, a husband is supposed to be compassionate and selfless.

His role is not just about providing for, caring for his children, but also about supporting and nurturing his wife.

However, it’s a different ball game if you have to deal with a selfish one.

The type that only thinks about himself.

He is so self-centered that nothing else matters but him alone, or in my case, his over-the-road trucking profession. 

But how do you deal with a selfish husband who is all about his money? 

Getting to manage such an independent and ambitious husband is quite herculean and could rub off on you in the long run. 

You are better off getting to the root cause.

Understanding the reasons why your husband seems selfish will help you understand his situation and decide whether or not he’s redeemable. 

Here’s what I did to make shifts in my long-distance marriage and look at things from a spiritual plus trauma-informed perspective, to really see if his true feelings would reveal themselves no matter how hard he tries to control or suppress his emotions due to fears and trauma. What I had to realize was that men experience childhood trauma too, just because they don’t talk about it like women do; it doesn’t mean men don’t feel stress and pain, too.

Childhood Experience

The reason why your husband is selfish could be the kind of family he was raised in.

How a person was raised can affect the kind of habits and attitudes they exhibit. 

Take, for instance, he was raised by a selfish father/parent, a father/parent who has no iota of softness for his wife or his children. 

Chances are that children raised under such circumstances would follow in their father’s/parents’ footsteps, which explains why your husband is selfish.

It is not exactly his fault.

He had no good example to follow while growing up.

He clearly doesn’t know how to behave otherwise. 

You need to ascertain if he was raised by a selfish father/parent, and if that is true, be ready for the rollercoaster of events that will follow. 

He could either agree to seek help or turn it all on you. 

Whatever the case may be, it is up to you to either stay in the marriage or call it quits. 

You don’t want to raise another generation of selfish human beings. 

For me, after talking to my sister-in-laws and mother-in-law about their family background, I saw that my husband was experiencing childhood emotional neglect trauma just as I had, but didn’t know that was the issue.

Although he didn’t respond in the way that I wanted or expected, I found that he remembers the little things, my favorite food, books, and shops I love, which shows that he is truly listening and valuing every detail I share. This level of attentiveness not only made me feel special but also indicates that he cherishes my individuality, treating every aspect of me as significant; a selfish person doesn’t act like that. 

He lacks empathy

Another reason why your husband may be self-centered is that he lacks empathy, due to CEN trauma.

Empathy involves the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes and understand their feelings and perspectives. 

When someone has an empathy deficit, they struggle to make this emotional connection. 

As unbelievable as it sounds. Some people genuinely don’t know how to be empathetic; they suppress their emotions and live in survival mode. 

And your husband likely falls under this category of people. 

His lack of empathy may stem from a genuine difficulty in understanding or appreciating your feelings and needs, because he was never taught how to do this as a child.

Which is why you perceive his behavior as self-centered or inconsiderate, but the root cause is unresolved emotional trauma/pain.

For instance, when I was upset about my hubby not spending enough time with the family, he might view it as an overreaction rather than a legitimate call for emotional support and connection, but all I saw was the same pattern he putting money and his semi truck before us. This triggered me because my parents did the same thing when I was a child, putting work first over family. I had a false belief that money and success equaled a broken family unit. I feared success and being abandoned for a long time. I knew deep down I had what it took to be successful, but I feared the cost because of the nature of my childhood experience; I did not want to feel like a second option again, I was made to feel invisible once again, reexperiencing my childhood drama and that triggered thiese fears when he had to work and couldn’t come home. In my mind, he was saying you are an option, work comes first, when that was not the case, that was my abandonment wound speaking.

I soon realized the truth that even if his schedule was jam-packed, he consistently finds ways to carve out moments just for me and the kids. 

This might mean squeezing in a quick stop when passing through Atlanta or planning a leisurely weekend after a long haul, just for us. We made the best of the time we had together.

By adjusting his busy life to ensure I had his attention, he demonstrates that my presence is important to him. 

This effort shows that he sees value in the connection we share and is willing to rearrange his priorities to foster that marital bond. 

It’s not just about fitting me and the kids into his schedule—it’s a clear message that he wants to invest time and energy into our relationship and family unit.

Fear of vulnerability

Your husband’s seemingly selfish attitude could actually be a defense mechanism to protect himself from vulnerability. I know this was the case for my hubby; early in our relationship, he did not take responsibility for anything, and owning up is part of the inner work he eventually had to learn to do if he wanted our marriage to work.

This fear of owning up may lead your husband to prioritize his own needs to protect himself from the potential pain and exposure that come with emotional openness, like my husband. 

His behaviour could be more pronounced if he were betrayed or jilted in his past relationship, or if someone had taken his openness for granted, which was the case for my hubby. 

If your husband has experienced such situations, he might subconsciously put up barriers to protect himself. 

These barriers can appear as selfishness—choosing actions that safeguard his emotions while inadvertently disregarding yours, unintentionally, until it’s brought to his awareness. Simply more inner work he must focus on.

His priorities are different from yours

Your husband may appear selfish because your priorities are different. You simply want different things in life. You may live a life where he has his own life and you have yours. In this case, you may feel distant or like living with a roommate.

Or perhaps, what seems like selfishness on his part might be a focus on other aspects of life, such as career, hobbies, or personal goals. 

This difference in interest may be mistaken for selfishness. For us, we had to sit down and have a real, honest conversation and set mutual goals and understand each other's fears, vision for life, and how we each wanted to experience life as a family unit moving forward.

In any relationship, each individual brings their own set of values, ambitions, childhood trauma, fears, and interests to the table. 

For instance, if your husband places a significant emphasis on his career, like my hubby did, he might work long hours or prioritize job-related tasks and opportunities, not realizing he is neglecting his family's needs and duties as a husband and father. All he sees is that he is providing for our physical needs, not aware that he is neglecting our emotional needs. Classic emotional neglect trauma is in the making.

Meanwhile, if your priority was like my own, it lies more with family time or relational growth due to your own abandonment and childhood emotional neglect trauma, this discrepancy in focus can feel like neglect or selfishness.

Effective communication is crucial in navigating through different priorities while healing generational trauma. 

Discussing each other’s goals, personal healing work, and why they are important can lead to greater understanding and empathy. 

Through such conversations, you might discover that what seemed like selfish behavior was actually a commitment to a goal that hadn’t been communicated clearly.

You both don’t communicate

Sometimes, what comes off as selfishness can actually be a lack of communication. 

If your husband isn’t aware of your needs and expectations, he might not realize how his actions are perceived as selfish.

If there is a reluctance or difficulty in expressing personal needs or desires, your husband may not be aware of how his actions are affecting you. 

This is particularly true in relationships where open emotional expression is not the norm or where individuals assume their partner should “just know” what they need without having to communicate it explicitly.

For example, if your husband decides to spend extra hours at work without discussing why, you might see it as neglectful or selfish when, in fact, he might be doing so to provide better for the family or secure a promotion that benefits everyone.

To bridge these gaps, it’s crucial to foster an environment where both of you feel safe and encouraged to express your thoughts and feelings.

I didn’t know it at the time, but when my husband began to share more of his personal stories, his dreams, and his vulnerabilities, it was a significant sign that he trusts me and sees me as someone with whom he can be genuine. 

By opening up about his childhood and past experiences and the challenges he’s faced at work over the road in the trucking industry, he invited me into his inner world—a place men usually reserve for those they truly care about, which I did not recognize at first. 

This level of openness is an intentional act to deepen the emotional connection between both of us. 

It showed that he values honesty and intimacy, and it’s his way of building a solid foundation of trust and mutual understanding in our relationship.

It has become a habit

Another reason your husband seems selfish is simply because he is truly selfish. 

 If your husband’s selfish behaviors have been a long-standing habit, they might be deeply ingrained. He will never take the time to actively invest time, energy, and emotion into building a relationship grounded in trust, care, and genuine affection. 

In that case, he might not recognize that his attitude has been selfish because he has exhibited that trait for so long that it has become a part of him. 

This could be particularly worse if he has never had someone check him before. 

When all those around him have ever done is condone and enable him, he might expect you also to get comfortable with such an attitude. It's up to you to check him, set boundaries, teach him how to treat you, or lay down what you will or will not tolerate.

He might be dealing with stress or other external pressure

Stress from work, financial worries, or other external pressures can make your husband appear more self-focused. Let’s be real, some men don’t like to talk about their feelings or stress, especially not to their wife, who they don’t want to see them as incapable or weak for not coping with life.  

During stressful times, he might want to talk to his friends or conserve his emotional energy, inadvertently coming off as selfish.

Again, clear communication can affect such a situation.

While your husband may not handle stress well, he can simply tell you what is bothering him. 

That way, you can give him some alone time to do the inner work needed to heal or manage his stress.

Clear communication will also help you to understand him and be supportive while he goes through that phase. That’s why it’s important to create an environment where it's safe and non-judgmental to talk about such things. 

However, it’s not enough to blame him, you need to understand your husband on a deeper level, even if you have to look at things like I did on a soul level-healing unresolved trauma. 

So you don’t read meanings into his actions and inactions like I once did through my own unresolved emotional trauma. 

Conclusion

Your husband’s background could be the reason why he is selfish, among many other reasons, such as unhealed complex trauma. 

When a person is raised by selfish parents, it becomes difficult for the children to be selfless. 

Asking someone like that to be selfless might mean asking too much of them.

Therefore, don’t expect a swift turnaround.

You might want to take it one step at a time or seek professional help. People can heal, but it must be their choice as they gotta do the work required to heal. If he chooses to heal, it will show that he values you deeply and envisions a future where you both continue to grow and heal together as one family unit, just as God intended for mature couples.

If this article resonated with you, please share it with someone who needs it.

Comment below on how you and your spouse/partner are healing together to build a stronger family unit while breaking generational trauma.

Couples Who Heal Together Stay Together.

-Dr. Nikki LeToya White

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Need Help Developing A Plan For Self-Care

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About The Author:

Dr. Nikki LeToya White MSEd-TL, Ph.D. RHN is the founder, director, and full-time board-certified trauma-informed nutritionist, folk herbalist, and wellness consultant at Spiced Life Conversation Art Wellness Studio and Botanica. She created Spiced Life Conversation, LLC

Art Wellness Studio and Botanica to provide the Metro Atlanta area with counseling and coaching services where clients are carefully matched with the right program for healing abandonment and childhood emotional neglect trauma that cause codependency, emotional eating, financial stress, and imposter syndrome as it relates to fear of success and being abandon. We help you begin your emotional healing journey with ease. Recently, we have expanded to include an online membership site so we now provide support to people living all over the world. All of our recovery coaches provide at least one evidence-based treatment to assist in your recovery. Dr. White is a big proponent of self-care and helping people live a fulfilling life! She has been in full remission with both codependency and emotional binge eating disorder since 2016. In living a life in recovery from sugar addiction. Loving her low-sugar balance lifestyle.

Best Regards

Dr. Nikki LeToya White